From the Jewish Review of Books, Benny Morris reviewsFortress Israel: The Inside Story of the Military Elite Who Run the Country—and Why They Can’t Make Peace by Patrick Tyler. Why should we even care if the government is collecting our data? Kafka, not Orwell, can help us understand the problems of digitized mass surveillance, argues legal scholar Daniel J. Solove (and more). Oversight now: Bruce Ackerman on why Congress needs to go big — and restrict the power of a runaway executive branch. Sam Pizzigati on where Uncle Sam ought to be snooping: Let’s place private corporations with government contracts under surveillance — to make sure no one is getting rich off our tax dollars. “I don’t care much about my image”: John McDermott interviews Bernard-Henri Levy on toppling tyrants and his new “rendezvous with the question of art”. Beyond recognition: Katie Drummond on the incredible story of a face transplant.

Hun Chung (Rochester): Hobbes's State of Nature: A Modern Bayesian Game-Theoretic Analysis. Waller R. Newell on how Plato and Aristotle help us understand the tyranny of Bashar al-Assad. Daniel Drezner on why Obama is arming Syria's rebels: it's the realism, stupid. Peter Ludlow on the real war on reality: Surveillance and deception are not just fodder for the next “Matrix” movie, but a real sort of epistemic warfare. Are savages noble? Ronald Bailey reviewsPaleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us About Sex, Diet, and How We Live by Marlene Zuk and The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? by Jared Diamond. Uncapturing the Friedmans: Jesse Friedman spent 13 years in prison as a notorious child rapist — he may soon get an apology. Jordan Weissman on the court ruling that could end unpaid internships for good.